As the Milan conference on climate change considered the next stage in world policy to combat global warming, researchers from RFF took an active part in the discussions.

The focus of these talks was now turning to the years after 2012 --- the post-Kyoto period. The central issues are how to persuade the United States and the major developing countries like China and India to take part, and what methods will begin most efficiently to slow the current rise in emissions of greenhouse gases, the leading cause of global warming.

The Milan meeting (Dec. 1 through 12) is the ninth conference of the parties (COP-9) to the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change. COP-3 in 1997 produced the Kyoto Protocol, which was designed to impose binding emissions limits on the industrial countries. But the United States has refused to participate, and Kyoto does not put limits on any of the developing countries. Whether Kyoto will ever go legally into force is uncertain. In any case, its commitments reach only to 2012 and, regardless of its status, the questions regarding what happens next are becoming increasingly urgent.